Well the last posting was quasi a joke. I couldn’t believe a representative of Somaliland would really write my office here to ask the Russian government for recognition of Somalilands independence. But several other mini states have been in touch since, with similar requests. Some get taken seriously, others don’t. this one did:
"Transdniestria has by no means been thrown overboard. I believe that we've still got everything ahead of us," Oleg Gudymo told X in connection with Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "Fortunately, in Moldova the ruling elite has turned out to be much more intelligent than the Georgian one. Moldovan nationalism is not as terrible as Georgian nationalism. And President Vladimir Voronin is a wise politician and is unlike Saakashvili, who has gone crazy," Gudymo said. "I believe it is Moldova that should be the first to recognize us," he said. “If they want to live in peace with us they have no other option because they realize that we will never go back on our position," Gudymo said.
That combined with the statement issued today by Dmitry Rogozin that "We will ensure the safety of our citizens no matter where they live - among polar bears or in Africa or in the United States. Ensuring the safety and human dignity of Russian citizens is the constitutional duty of our leadership," Rogozin stressed.
This was said on the radio (Ekho Moskvy) in response to a question about the Russian community in Crimea. Draw your own conclusions!
28.8.08
26.8.08
dilemmas
When you work for the media, I guess you get used to dealing with lots of unexpected people and situations. i never would have guessed three months ago that I would have had some of the experiences I have recently. I have had breakfast with the Malaysian minister of tourism (lots of charts on the success of the Malaysia Truly Asia campaign) and I have one with the prime minister of Georgia coming up at the Ritz in Geneva in a few weeks. I have also met some powerful bankers, industrialist and government officials. But I still have yet to figure out how to deal with my increasingly odd correspondence. This morning I came in to find this email waiting for me. Honestly, my heart goes out to the people of Somaliland. Everyone I know who has been concurs that it is functioning as a separate entity and has been for years….but I am neither the UN nor the president of anything- what can I do? i am just a poor phd student!!!!
Dear Madam,
Kindly pass my greetings to H.E the Minister of Foreign Affairs
I understand the Russian Federation is in discussion to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is welcome news to us people of the unrecognised republic of Somaliland as we share the predicament of these two peoples and the people of Transdniestra too. Your Excellcies we have been seeking recognition for 17 years. We have far more de facto and de jure claim to Statehood than Kosovo and all other countries of former Yugoslavia none of whom suffered anywhere near the oppression we in Somaliland suffered at the hands of Somalia. Your Excellency I challenge anyone to look into this in any detail and come to any different conclusions. We have secure borders, clear historical timeline of nationhood, elected national and local institutions, the rule of law, our own currency and passports; our own legal system and seperate judiciary yet we have been ignored and dissmissed by the Western nations for reasons beyond our comprehension. It appears they have one rule for the Balkans and the Caucuses and Russia and another for the rest of the World.
A recognition of Somaliland will show Russia is principled nation which values the self-determination and human dignity for all nations unlike the patronising West who are smothering our young nation to death with neglect and indifference. A recognition of Somaliland will also once more demonstrate Russia has its own independent global policy which is based not on self-interest like the West but on principle. It will win Russia an eternal little friend on the shores of the Red Sea. It will be the first African nation which Russian is taught in schools. Russian companies will be given a priority on investment. Putingrads and Medvdevgrads will adorn the deserts of Horn of Africa.The Port of Berbera which you built in the 70s will be open to Russian ships and navy. Most importantly you will show the West's poltical hypocrisy and double-standards when it comes to international affairs. And there is not one single negative poltical fallout for Russia from recognsiing a deserving little country. Even Somalia itself is happy for Somaliland to secede. Ask their ambassdor in Moscow.
Thank you,
X
Dear Madam,
Kindly pass my greetings to H.E the Minister of Foreign Affairs
I understand the Russian Federation is in discussion to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is welcome news to us people of the unrecognised republic of Somaliland as we share the predicament of these two peoples and the people of Transdniestra too. Your Excellcies we have been seeking recognition for 17 years. We have far more de facto and de jure claim to Statehood than Kosovo and all other countries of former Yugoslavia none of whom suffered anywhere near the oppression we in Somaliland suffered at the hands of Somalia. Your Excellency I challenge anyone to look into this in any detail and come to any different conclusions. We have secure borders, clear historical timeline of nationhood, elected national and local institutions, the rule of law, our own currency and passports; our own legal system and seperate judiciary yet we have been ignored and dissmissed by the Western nations for reasons beyond our comprehension. It appears they have one rule for the Balkans and the Caucuses and Russia and another for the rest of the World.
A recognition of Somaliland will show Russia is principled nation which values the self-determination and human dignity for all nations unlike the patronising West who are smothering our young nation to death with neglect and indifference. A recognition of Somaliland will also once more demonstrate Russia has its own independent global policy which is based not on self-interest like the West but on principle. It will win Russia an eternal little friend on the shores of the Red Sea. It will be the first African nation which Russian is taught in schools. Russian companies will be given a priority on investment. Putingrads and Medvdevgrads will adorn the deserts of Horn of Africa.The Port of Berbera which you built in the 70s will be open to Russian ships and navy. Most importantly you will show the West's poltical hypocrisy and double-standards when it comes to international affairs. And there is not one single negative poltical fallout for Russia from recognsiing a deserving little country. Even Somalia itself is happy for Somaliland to secede. Ask their ambassdor in Moscow.
Thank you,
X
25.8.08
music
it has been a bank holiday weekend here in england. one of those bank holidays i shall never understand the purpose of, but if am never one to object to....a day out of the office?
normal people would have written " a day off work" but actually i did go into work today, on the holiday, but it was my fun job, at the bookshop, and i only did a 4 hour shift, for which i will receive double pay, so no complaints there!
in the evenings, after all the counting up had been done in the back office of the shop, i went home to work on my very neglected thesis. it is sometimes hard to remember that i came to this country to do a phd. sometimes it seems that since i have been here, i have done everything except that. i often regret having ever started it, but i do want to finish, i have wasted to much time on it not to.
so i got home, changed into my domashnaia odezhda and tried to edit. but i realised something was missing! my Ethiopian music!
i have always had eclectic taste, but there are very few things i can productively work to. i cannot work at all though, without music or distraction of some sort. so for the past few months, i have turned on my Ethiopian tunes before even bothering to open word.
All the albums i have were made during the supposed golden age of ethiopian sound, a remarkably brief period between 1969 and 1975. but the stuff produced in those 6 short years was enough to fill albums of incredible variety. the influence of western jazz is strong, as are Armenian rhythms, apparently the result of the Arba Lijoch, a group of 40 Armenian orphans who escaped from the Armenian genocide in Turkey, and were then, randomly, adopted by Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. For some reason, the emperor concluded Armenians were unusually musical and paid for their ongoing musical training. Selassie didnt much like the decadent sounds that came out of his country in his last years, and tried to stop the musicians from performing live concerts. but that was nothing compared to the Derg, which executed and imprisoned tens of thousands of its opponents without trial, hitting the musical community hard. Those who were left were forced underground or into exile. one has to wonder what would have happened had the political situation gone another way?
normal people would have written " a day off work" but actually i did go into work today, on the holiday, but it was my fun job, at the bookshop, and i only did a 4 hour shift, for which i will receive double pay, so no complaints there!
in the evenings, after all the counting up had been done in the back office of the shop, i went home to work on my very neglected thesis. it is sometimes hard to remember that i came to this country to do a phd. sometimes it seems that since i have been here, i have done everything except that. i often regret having ever started it, but i do want to finish, i have wasted to much time on it not to.
so i got home, changed into my domashnaia odezhda and tried to edit. but i realised something was missing! my Ethiopian music!
i have always had eclectic taste, but there are very few things i can productively work to. i cannot work at all though, without music or distraction of some sort. so for the past few months, i have turned on my Ethiopian tunes before even bothering to open word.
All the albums i have were made during the supposed golden age of ethiopian sound, a remarkably brief period between 1969 and 1975. but the stuff produced in those 6 short years was enough to fill albums of incredible variety. the influence of western jazz is strong, as are Armenian rhythms, apparently the result of the Arba Lijoch, a group of 40 Armenian orphans who escaped from the Armenian genocide in Turkey, and were then, randomly, adopted by Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. For some reason, the emperor concluded Armenians were unusually musical and paid for their ongoing musical training. Selassie didnt much like the decadent sounds that came out of his country in his last years, and tried to stop the musicians from performing live concerts. but that was nothing compared to the Derg, which executed and imprisoned tens of thousands of its opponents without trial, hitting the musical community hard. Those who were left were forced underground or into exile. one has to wonder what would have happened had the political situation gone another way?
23.8.08
entertainment
in the middle of my shift at the bookshop, james walked up to me and handed me a sheet of paper, reading
drab as a fool, aloof as a bard
a man, a plan, a canal: panama
I smirked at his pedantry and snarkily informed him I am generally more interested in content than form.
But then, this week, back in my cubicle, I started thinking in desperation and boredom:
Коростели летели, летели, ..., летели лет сорок
Socorram-me subi no onibus em Marrocos
I topi non avevano nipoti
Then I remember that when it comes to linguistic formalism, the hungarians always go over board:
Kis erek mentén, láp sík ölén odavan a bánya rabja: jaj, Baranyában a vadon élő Kis Pálnét nem keresik
such a strange tongue. no wonder the country produces so many scientists, if you can manage that, you can probably come up with anything.
drab as a fool, aloof as a bard
a man, a plan, a canal: panama
I smirked at his pedantry and snarkily informed him I am generally more interested in content than form.
But then, this week, back in my cubicle, I started thinking in desperation and boredom:
Коростели летели, летели, ..., летели лет сорок
Socorram-me subi no onibus em Marrocos
I topi non avevano nipoti
Then I remember that when it comes to linguistic formalism, the hungarians always go over board:
Kis erek mentén, láp sík ölén odavan a bánya rabja: jaj, Baranyában a vadon élő Kis Pálnét nem keresik
such a strange tongue. no wonder the country produces so many scientists, if you can manage that, you can probably come up with anything.
15.8.08
i saw it coming, but i didnt
when i accepted a job "representing" the russian media in western europe, i went into it with my eyes open, i thought.
everyone knows Russia doesnt have a free media, and hasnt for many years now. my division focuses on financial/commodities reports, so i didnt think this would matter. in any case, i needed the money, badly.
what i didnt expect was what has happened over the past week: a war in georgia, allegedly over two sad strips of land, and a massive propaganda campaign. i didnt expect that every time CNN or SKY news called me i would be given a script to read from. i didnt expect that i would be required to lie publicly, to clients, to the western media, and to investors. and lie i have. i have read out statements from the ministry of foreign affairs with a straight face, knowing perfectly well they consist of fantastical misrepresentations of the truth, some have been absurd to the point of comical. and i have listened as my friends in Gori, in tbilisi, and in sukhami have called me and held their phones in the air so i could here the shots and the screaming. at least the phones lines stayed open.
but most of all, i have concluded russia is weak and putin as scared as ever. this has nothing to do with the war itself, the situation in south ossetia and abhazia is not what i am getting at here (although i have been to both regions and know them well, i have been trying to tell people about the potential for conflict in abhkazia for YEARS now). rather, what is the most telling from my perspective is the way in which the russian leadership fears the media. the way in which it is apparently worried enough about the reality to restrict access to it. if you read the western media in the early days of this conflict, you probably noted all the western news stories were coming from the georgian side. you could say this reflects western media biases, but that is bullshit. the problem is russia restricted access of western journalists and prevented them from representing the russian side of the story. at the start of the conflict, my company and one other (also russian) were the only ones allowed in, giving us complete control over the media....or rather giving the russian government complete control over the media, since they are, ultimately, our bosses. now part of this is the result of endemic corruption (ie we can pay to make sure we are the only ones allowed to cover a story) but it is also the result of fear. what were the russian authorities so scared western journalists would find? that the russian troops were poorly trained and dreadfully fed? we all know this already. i think instead it was because of a mania for controlling the news, in any form, whether it is necessary or not. even if a western journalist wanted to write of the heroic efforts of russia in the region, they probably still would have been restricted, since the authorities trust no one over whom they do not have total control and veto powers.
so the stories that emerged are slanted on the georgian side, and the media filled with endless images of poor elderly georgian pensioners with destroyed houses behind them. russia might have succeeded militarily, but it has lost the image war in the west, and it has only itself to blame for that.
everyone knows Russia doesnt have a free media, and hasnt for many years now. my division focuses on financial/commodities reports, so i didnt think this would matter. in any case, i needed the money, badly.
what i didnt expect was what has happened over the past week: a war in georgia, allegedly over two sad strips of land, and a massive propaganda campaign. i didnt expect that every time CNN or SKY news called me i would be given a script to read from. i didnt expect that i would be required to lie publicly, to clients, to the western media, and to investors. and lie i have. i have read out statements from the ministry of foreign affairs with a straight face, knowing perfectly well they consist of fantastical misrepresentations of the truth, some have been absurd to the point of comical. and i have listened as my friends in Gori, in tbilisi, and in sukhami have called me and held their phones in the air so i could here the shots and the screaming. at least the phones lines stayed open.
but most of all, i have concluded russia is weak and putin as scared as ever. this has nothing to do with the war itself, the situation in south ossetia and abhazia is not what i am getting at here (although i have been to both regions and know them well, i have been trying to tell people about the potential for conflict in abhkazia for YEARS now). rather, what is the most telling from my perspective is the way in which the russian leadership fears the media. the way in which it is apparently worried enough about the reality to restrict access to it. if you read the western media in the early days of this conflict, you probably noted all the western news stories were coming from the georgian side. you could say this reflects western media biases, but that is bullshit. the problem is russia restricted access of western journalists and prevented them from representing the russian side of the story. at the start of the conflict, my company and one other (also russian) were the only ones allowed in, giving us complete control over the media....or rather giving the russian government complete control over the media, since they are, ultimately, our bosses. now part of this is the result of endemic corruption (ie we can pay to make sure we are the only ones allowed to cover a story) but it is also the result of fear. what were the russian authorities so scared western journalists would find? that the russian troops were poorly trained and dreadfully fed? we all know this already. i think instead it was because of a mania for controlling the news, in any form, whether it is necessary or not. even if a western journalist wanted to write of the heroic efforts of russia in the region, they probably still would have been restricted, since the authorities trust no one over whom they do not have total control and veto powers.
so the stories that emerged are slanted on the georgian side, and the media filled with endless images of poor elderly georgian pensioners with destroyed houses behind them. russia might have succeeded militarily, but it has lost the image war in the west, and it has only itself to blame for that.
7.8.08
money
so there is apparently a recession on. combined with that soaring fuel prices and 60 million seats slashed from airline schedueles. with the result that i just paid 1,200 pounds for a ticket which this time last year would have cost me 700. ouch.
4.8.08
food
Ok I am the first to admit I am a pig. I like my food, I always have.
I like trying different tastes and exploring different cuisines. And, since I still preserve the manners of a broke student, I can never ever pass up the site of free food.
So, Friday was a slow day. My boss didn't show up, as he often doesn't on Fridays. And he thus forgot that he and another college were meant to be going to a meeting at canary wharf with a major investment bank. So I went in his place. I wasn't really looking forward to it, it wasn't in my territory, and these presentations are normally a bit stressful, so going to one last minute on a Friday afternoon was not my idea of a good time.
So we got to canary wharf and went to the bank. We were escorted into a large conference room, at which point our jaws dropped. There was a massive and beautiful wood table, filled with a mouth watering spread of delicacies. There was a cheese platter, an enormous fruit platter of pineapple, apricot, blackberries, strawberries kiwi and blueberries. There was a silver tray of biscuits neatly arranged in a display. Then there was another platter of savoury biscuits to go with the cheese selection….
We stared in awe for a moment, then negotiated….could we get away with a bite? Was this for us? Would anyone notice if we dug in? could we get away with sticking some of the grub in my purse for later? At least some wrapped chocolates?
We couldn't resists, we munched some berries, assuming they were little enough not to be notices. Then we decided we should finish ALL the blackberries, cause it would be obvious if there was only one or two left….one thing led to another and we were discreetly wolfing down gobs of expensive food. And we got away with it. Eventually the clients showed up. They didn't give a crap about the presentation, they were bored and looking to spend their Friday as painlessly as possible. One handed me a plate and invited me to dig in, which I did, again.
I like trying different tastes and exploring different cuisines. And, since I still preserve the manners of a broke student, I can never ever pass up the site of free food.
So, Friday was a slow day. My boss didn't show up, as he often doesn't on Fridays. And he thus forgot that he and another college were meant to be going to a meeting at canary wharf with a major investment bank. So I went in his place. I wasn't really looking forward to it, it wasn't in my territory, and these presentations are normally a bit stressful, so going to one last minute on a Friday afternoon was not my idea of a good time.
So we got to canary wharf and went to the bank. We were escorted into a large conference room, at which point our jaws dropped. There was a massive and beautiful wood table, filled with a mouth watering spread of delicacies. There was a cheese platter, an enormous fruit platter of pineapple, apricot, blackberries, strawberries kiwi and blueberries. There was a silver tray of biscuits neatly arranged in a display. Then there was another platter of savoury biscuits to go with the cheese selection….
We stared in awe for a moment, then negotiated….could we get away with a bite? Was this for us? Would anyone notice if we dug in? could we get away with sticking some of the grub in my purse for later? At least some wrapped chocolates?
We couldn't resists, we munched some berries, assuming they were little enough not to be notices. Then we decided we should finish ALL the blackberries, cause it would be obvious if there was only one or two left….one thing led to another and we were discreetly wolfing down gobs of expensive food. And we got away with it. Eventually the clients showed up. They didn't give a crap about the presentation, they were bored and looking to spend their Friday as painlessly as possible. One handed me a plate and invited me to dig in, which I did, again.
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